Zach LaVine spent part of the Bulls’ day off Thursday playing video games and sitting in a massage chair his father purchased for him.

Asked if he combined the two activities, LaVine laughed.

“That’s exactly what I did,” he said. “It’s kind of tough, though, because you want to fall asleep. I moved it all the way back. That massage chair is love.”

The image is a fitting metaphor for LaVine, whose scoring prowess the Bulls currently love. Tempted by sleep during his well-deserved massage, LaVine found a way to stay engaged and stoke his competitiveness via video games.

LaVine could be excused for wanting a break from shouldering such a heavy offensive load for the short-handed Bulls. Instead, he has risen to the challenge despite drawing prominent defensive attention. He has scored at least 20 points in all 12 games and was fourth in the NBA in scoring through Thursday with 27.4 points per game.

“I’ll do whatever I have to do to try to put points on the board or help us win,” LaVine said. “If that’s scoring, facilitating, rebounding, whatever it is. It’s scoring for right now. I’ll continue to do that until we need something else.”

The Bulls remain weeks away from returning reinforcements in Lauri Markkanen, Kris Dunn, Bobby Portis and Denzel Valentine. So expect LaVine’s scoring mindset to continue in the short term.

And his aggressiveness will continue regardless. It just might play out in a different form.

Anyone who views LaVine as a selfish, stats-conscious player is either ignoring his career-high assists average of 3.8 or not talking to him.

“They’ll spread the floor. They’ll take the pressure away. You can give the ball to them at times when they need to score,” LaVine said of eventual reinforcements. “It’s like getting your dudes back.

“(My role) is going to have to change a little because those touches are going to go other places. That’s part of a team. But I’m going to still have my aggressiveness. I don’t think that’s going to change.”

What bodes well for that working is LaVine’s newfound efficiency. He’s shooting a career-high 46.1 percent and obliterating his previous best for free-throw attempts per game, 7.8 to 4.5.

And while he has earned the right for the occasional heat-check jumper, close to 40 percent of his shots are within 3 feet of the basket. And that doesn’t factor in all the times LaVine has been fouled.

Two of the Bulls’ three victories have featured LaVine attacking the rim, drawing a foul and making game-winning free thows with less than a second remaining.

“He really has improved in the area of attacking the basket,” coach Fred Hoiberg said. “You can see his free-throw numbers are up. His finishing is better at the rim. He’s not settling for as many shots as he did a year ago. And a lot of that has to do with the confidence that he has with his health.”

That ability to attack the basket can continue regardless of who’s on the floor. LaVine said as much when discussing the two-man game between him and Markkanen that Hoiberg referenced in the first few days of training camp before Markannen suffered his elbow injury.

“When we were in practice, if we ran a side pick-and-roll or a step-up on the outer third of the lane, they had to pick one,” LaVine said of the defenders. “I’m going to go downhill and make the big (man) commit. Or they’re going to switch or show or whatever it is, they’re going to have to commit to one of us.

“Lauri is such a good shooter, he almost makes the defender drop off and go into a help position. That helps spacing-wise. If they drop off too much, you can pass to him.”

Those looks will come. Until then, LaVine will spend his downtime in his massage chair and stay awake and engaged for what’s next.

“We understand he’s a guy who has to have big nights for us,” Hoiberg said. “He has grown into that role. It’s one that he never has been in before, but he seems very comfortable in it. Being the go-to-guy, it’s an adjustment. But we like the way Zach has handled it so far.”